Choose Strong
For Tim.
We are not in the business of martial arts. We are in the business of selling
confidence. -- Helio Gracie
Toward the end of June, finally the bugs seemed to retreat. I relaxed and rolled
easy, recovered well, and could sense my progress. That second stripe, I felt I
have earned it. Sailing home on my e-bike after the noon class under the clear
sky and warm sun, I felt so blessed and sometimes sang out loud: Halelujah!
A lightbulb went on and suddenly I started to trust my techniques over strength
and speed. My skills were generally crappy but not the crappiest. It was the
most obvious when sparring with the white belts where the question became: they
can't do much anyway and since I do know better, why not use the knowledge
instead of only muscle and hustle? Machine agreed with me that I should hone
skills on the lower belts. He did the same, he said.
And meanwhile, that brought back what John (Liu) asked me, rhetorically, "Why so
fast?" a couple of months ago. Now I have the answer: that's because you are
more experienced and I need to create some movement, hopefully in time to
disrupt your plans.
Second week of July we trained in self-defense. (Raam told me he asked the
previous week.) Machine did a review on classic Gracie punch-blocking distance
management from the guard. Darren the next day showed counters to choking
against a wall, with either one or two hands. I loved the details because I
found that approaching a problem in little steps seems to render it technical
and take away fear.
Tolles's ankle-pick from seated guard caught my eye but with his head between
the legs it looked risking a kick. The next day, Darren confirmed the head
position and told me he wouldn't recommend it for self-defense. The next
morning, I turned to Henry's video on the same topic. It was an eye-opener. His
head was between the legs and he gave three great examples, one MMA fight, one
wrestling WC and coach (John Smith), and one of himself in a real fight, that it
works and the risk is small. Still, I will experiment with the head outside
version.
In this gym, guard recovery instead of going to turtle was taught and after
months, I started to see it has a point.
Jul 11. Machine taught the classic kesa gatame escapes. Here are a few details
of his bridge version:
- have my hip really close to the guy's hip,
- bridge straight up so that his hips rise above the ground, and
- change the angle across.
Henry taught lifting the locked arms and directly bridging to the 1 o'clock.
The close guard techniques were mind-boggling. I enter the chin-arm headlock by
getting one underhook and the other overhook, clapsing the hands behind his back
and neck, circling my arms as I hip out and close my legs again around his
torso, and gluing his upper-body to mine. Now his arm is trapped between the
side of my head and my top arm. From there, I have a few options.
I can shrug my top shoulder and duck my head to untrap his arm and follow
up with a nice head-and-arm choke. If it turns out hard to get his arm across, I
can go directly to the straight arm-bar with the following details:
- I need to hip out more for leverage,
- my top leg has to be directly over his shoulder to control his posture, and
- especially on a big guy, I might have to hip up and turn belly down.
Machine used me to show Francisco transferring to the back after guard passing.
I realized this was exactly Henry showed in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYeSTPJQWog
which I watched so many times. But why I got my back taken from there when I
tried to trap-and-roll?
I asked Machine counters to the backtake in trap-and-roll from the turtle
knee-behind-the-butt scenario. He showed hips up, cutting an angle, and a slow
version of the forward roll where he blocked the opponent's arm and leg and
raised his hips to circle passing the knee. The last was fantastic as it
eliminated the need for scramble as in the straight forward-roll where my legs
could be caught in mid-air. I should be able to do this!
Jul 14. We drilled standing guard pass. I loved the topic because for a
relatively small person, this is the go-to move when trapped inside the guard of
a lanky opponent good at triangles. But until today, I haven't made the choice
conciously. It's the kind of revelation that's so obvious that you kick yourself
when you finally get it.
Henry's standing guard pass does not trap the hand on the side of the first knee
up. Machine's version gives me more confidence against a bigger guy.
Once the guard is broken, one can pass from either side: pin a bottom leg to one
side or shelf the top leg calf on the shoulder and reach for the collar for the
stack pass.
Jul 15. We drilled a bearhug lift defense where I hook a leg to avoid being
hoisted and then slammed to the ground, throw myself down to grab the same leg
with both hands, sit backward to take him down, pinch my knees, control his
foot, and do the kneebar. Darren showed the entries to knee bar
- from bottom half-guard with knee shield: hook the farside leg and move the
knee-shield leg to the same side, pull his ankle to the side and roll him
forward with my (originally) bottom leg and enter the knee bar.
- from over-under pass fall to the side trap and pinch his leg.
- from over-under pass spread my knees and fall directly onto his knee cap.
Jul 17. Machine showed the steps against double ankle grabs during standing
guard pass. If the opponent is keeping his guard, make one foot light and lift
and kick forward to free it. If he breaks guard and drops hips, pinch knees,
grab his lapels, squat and make the elbow-knee connections. It should be hard
for him to sweep. Step forward toward his armpits, thrust my hips forward to
bring his legs in front and pass. Very happy that I was able to play open guard
to keep Andreas at bay.
Jul 18. I opened Facebook after one year of un-using and messaged Brenda to see
if Tim and I could come and train with her. I didn't check her posts and thought
it'd be at her home gym where she taught after leaving PSD early 2024. She
replied saying she'd announce class schedules at her new Belmont gym! Indeed.
Just this morning she shared a video where a few guys setting things up. How
exciting and what an inspiration she is, 66+ years old bjj black belt openning
her first gym!
Jul 21. Noon class was mount attacks, especially the Americana and armbar
details. Henry has an escape for the Americana with the leg hook. Rolled with
Lucas, Eversly, and Andy. Swept Eversly which made my day.
Evening at the opening of Brenda's Pacific MMA Academy. Tim and I met over two
dozen friends there, all from our PSD days. It was like we just rolled with each
other yesterday. Ernie taught the cross-side guard-recovery and reversal. We had
the same drill in the Sunnyvale gym and Ernie had one extra detail to the
reversal: his near-side hand clamping on the cross-face arm to defend a
potential arm-triangle. I drilled with Nick and he did not reach his far-side
arm across to grab my lats. It might be for the same reason.
Afterwards, I let myself go and rolled with Nick, Gauvin, and Steve and had a
great time.
I was glad to have brought Tim along. He stayed off the mat chatting with Jaeson
and Maria. Years back, he comforted their daughter after a roll that had gone
wrong and he went up to spar with the bully. He had been on the couple's good
side ever since. I was proud of him.
Jul 24. Darren taught jacking up the opponent's arms for high-mount and four
ways to foil the elbow escape. But they didn't prepare me in positional sparring
with Christian, a 200+ 30-something strong dude who just extended his arms and
pushed me off him. Henry's teaching only came to my mind AFTER the class. But
this is good, exactly the street scenario I should prepare for!
Okay. I reviewed the vale tudo video and will drill the four pushes with my
mates.
Jul 25. Trevor was not big but very good at the elbow escape and it's again
afterwards I remembered the counters!
Rolled with Justin and was able to from Henry's super-chill position threaten
the paper-cutter and catch his near-side arm as he tried to push my attacking
arm.
Jul 26. Fantastic class with Brenda, the old Redwood City gang, and folks from
Emeryville and San Lorenzo BJJ. She taught the sequence from pummeling:
- uchimata (underhook)
- osoto gari
- give up the underhook for a head-lock
- kesa-gatame if succeeding
- double/single-leg if failing
Rolled with Jeff, Bret, Li, Q, and Sal.
Jul 28. Machine saw I was reluctant to play mount and drew me aside and showed a
few easy tricks against the elbow escape:
- cross-face to flaten him out
- shift weight to make the knee he frames on heavy
- sit on both his legs to stop further movement as he traps my ankle
These helped me to stay on top. As I was already familiar with the armbar from
the mount, the longer I stay there the better chance I get the submission.
The backattack is always a possibility against the elbow escape.
Another detail he showed for the elbow escape was to first lift a knee to nudge
the opponent on his back to make him fall forward and base out with his hands.
Much of his weight thus would shift to his hands which makes it easy to get
under his knees. I used to find Michael(the cop)'s mount hard to escape as he
was sitting high with all his weight on his knees.
Jul 30. Machine showed the frame-and-guard-recovery of the north-south bottom
option. As an elbow touches the same-side knee, it's time to spin and get that
knee inside and the other leg to hook his neck. I saw this one before but it
didn't leave an impression, maybe it was because my goto move was always turtle.
John showed up and we drilled the one-arm-in-one-arm-out version of the
north-south bottom position which happened often when the top guy transition
from side-control. (I myself rarely did that but many of my partners did.) As I
just reviewed Henry's video on the same position, I did the move well.
What came next blew my mind as Machine used the same move to escape the
paper-cutter choke! He also showed two more paper-cutter escapes
- move my body to get north-south and go from there, and
- get my free arm under his chin to both defend the choke and do a reverse
paper-cutter on him.
My side-control was stronger than my other techniques but when rolling with John
at 50%, whenever I felt going against his frames he would get out. He explained
that whenever he could not force it, he'd admit defeat and quickly attack from a
different angle. He even let me drill this idea with him at the side-control
bottom. I had a great time.
Then I watched Chris Burns's video (Jul 9 reels) on north-south submission. He
trapped both arms and as the guy started swinging legs, he switched hips and
stepped over to the mount and got an easy armbar. It's amazing. I got to try
this.
Jul 31. I followed up the nudge with an arm-push and bridge to upa Alicia.
